


the spot...

by startswithhope



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff, Introspection, M/M, Spoilers, do not read if you haven't seen "The Hike" yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 09:36:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18341018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startswithhope/pseuds/startswithhope
Summary: A reflection of a few times Patrick hiked alone and the one time he didn't.  (don't read until you've seen "The Hike" - you've been warned)





	the spot...

He’d found the spot by accident. It had been an excruciatingly long five day stretch of all Ray all the time. Ray in the morning, Ray all day during work and Ray late into the night until Patrick could gracefully excuse himself to the blissful solitude of his bedroom.

Ray really liked to chat.

And he’d really needed an escape. So he’d gotten in his car and started driving, eventually spotting a small state park off the side of the road that seemed like a good option for a hike. After parking his car, he’d just started walking. It wasn’t the smartest plan, heading into an unknown forest without a map or compass, but the quiet rustle of the trees was like a siren’s song and Patrick just kept walking. Forty five minutes later...he found the spot.

The view from the cliff had been breathtaking, miles and miles of treetops as far as the eye could see, greens of every shade a beautiful contrast to the deepening blue of the late afternoon sky. It had been beautiful. And exactly what he needed.

He’d stayed there that first afternoon for about an hour, just sitting, immensely thankful for the lack of cell service. Ray couldn’t call. Rachel couldn’t text. He was alone, truly alone, for the first time in as long as he could remember. It was one one hand, unnerving, on the other, liberating. There was no one here to answer to. The confusion, unhappiness and disappointments that had led him here to Schitt’s Creek suddenly hadn’t felt so suffocating. He could start over here. It was time to take charge of his life.

* * *

 

He’d found himself there again a few weeks later, this time needed to give space for feelings he didn’t really understand. David Rose. David wasn’t a feeling, not really, but he was in a way, in that the way Patrick felt around him was full of many, many feelings. He was confused, but for some reason not surprised. He’d spent 45 minutes in a frame store in Elmdale picking out the perfect frame for David’s business license. The nice shopkeeper had tried to help, but he was adamant that he was okay and would find the right one on his own. And then David had hated it. Something so silly shouldn’t have felt like a kick to the gut, right? Why was impressing David Rose so important to him? And why did it take Patrick a good three hours to even notice that David’s sister, Alexis, had been flirting with him all day?

It was probably because Patrick had been unable to keep his eyes off of David. The way he confidently moved around the store as he unpacked new items, his mouth turning up in a crooked smile each time he found the perfect spot to place a new cream or scrub. And his hands, long fingers perfectly manicured and laden with rings...those had been of keen interest. He’d had to excuse himself to the back room at one point when David had caught him staring, too lost in a daydream of what it would be like to hold a hand wearing that many rings. Not just any hand though, David Rose’s.

This was Patrick’s first realization that he’d developed a crush on David Rose. A man. A man so completely opposite of himself. Sitting there, overlooking the sea of trees, Patrick had been truly honest with himself for the first time in his life. He was gay. And that was okay. Or at least, he hoped it would be.

* * *

 

Dawn had barely broken on a subsequent hike, adrenaline from the store opening the day before still coursing through his veins. Sleep had been elusive and he'd needed to get out and think. Think about the hug he’d shared with David at the end of the night. Think about the tug deep in his belly as David held him close, hugging him longer than any man ever had before. It had been a rush, a spark, a something that was interrupted by that stupid fucking light bulb.

What would he have done if that light hadn’t flickered? Would he have found the nerve to do more? Every step Patrick took into the forest that morning had been filled with what ifs, visions of possibilities of how that night should have ended. His perfect scenario, he’d decided, was feeling David’s ringed fingers brush the back of his neck in a questioning caress. A question Patrick would have answered with a light touch of his lips to David’s jaw, pulling back to look in those deep brown eyes for agreement. But that agreement never came and Patrick was left questioning. Does David even see him? As a possibility? As a man interested in more than just being his business partner…

Not one to wallow in defeat, Patrick had left that hike with a plan.

He was going to ask David Rose out on a date.

* * *

 

It had been a bit annoying traipsing through the woods with his guitar, but Patrick had known where he needed to be if he was going to get the arrangement just right. With his legs hanging over the cliff edge he’d sat on that rock for hours, strumming and humming until every note felt perfect against his fingertips and falling off the tip of his tongue.

Patrick had reached the point where he’d needed to tell David he was in love with him, but he knew David was far from ready to hear it. Or really, ready to accept it. The armor around his heart had a few cracks, but it hadn’t been quite ready to be breached. So, he’d needed the song to tell him instead. Because he’d never imagined he’d ever have a love like this. He’d hoped for it, searched for it in all the wrong places, in the wrong people.

He’d found it in the unlikeliest person of all.

In David Rose’s heart he really does see the start of every night and every day…

* * *

 

This hike could not be going any worse. His nerves are making him snippy, David is complaining about everything and... _mother fucker!_

Now he’s got a goddamn branch stuck in his stupid shoe.

He isn’t doing this today. _Everything is all wrong._

But then David pulls out hand sanitizer and becomes a dramatic version of Florence Nightingale, all confident and take charge and Patrick finds himself being swept away. Quite literally, actually.

Okay, maybe this can still happen.

When David takes in the view that Patrick has come to think of as his, it hits him hard how much he wants it to be _theirs_. So, he pushes forward.

His heart is in his throat as he speaks, David’s happy tears and unfettered smiles giving him the answer he’d been hoping for before the words are even spoken. That doesn’t mean that David’s “it’s a yes, it’s a yes...I love you” don’t mean the absolute world to him. Because those words set everything in Patrick’s world right.

This man is his forever.

It takes a bit of coaxing, but eventually Patrick convinces David to sit on the edge of the cliff with him. It’s there, with their future as endless as the vast forest in front of them, that Patrick weaves their hands together, feeling David’s four engagement rings press against his skin for the very first time.

It feels much the same as his other rings had felt. But as he squeezes David’s hand just a bit tighter, he thinks about each word he’s gotten engraved on the inside of each ring, those words branding David’s skin the way he’s branded Patrick’s heart.

One word for each ring.

_You’re_

_Simply_

_the_

_Best_


End file.
